


To Call you Comrade

by Saberaq



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Adeptus Astartes | Space Marines (Warhammer 40.000), Dark Angels, Gen, Intense, Interrogation, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Short, Space Marines, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29636997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saberaq/pseuds/Saberaq
Summary: Interrogator-Chaplain Carneliel Seraphus is to interrogate his first Fallen- his blood-brother, Bariel.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	To Call you Comrade

‘Repent, for tomorrow, you die!’  
-Mantra of the Dark Angels

Bariel heaved and panted blood on the freezing stone floors of the Rock. His hands were bound, his face stained with enraged tears and spittle, his body battered relentlessly. He turned his head hastily, spitting a crimson gout onto the sterile flooring, disrupting the nothing scent of the chamber with tones of sanguine copper.

Asmodai looked down to Bariel like a vicious predator gazing upon his pitifully defenseless quarry. He gave his fellow Interrogator-Chaplain a glance, pleased with his inferior’s progress so far. Brother Carneliel was new to the fold, one of the few Primaris Astartes honored enough to be placed within the Inner Circle. Asmodai remembered fondly when Carneliel was but a boy, and how much he had grown, how the Chapter has fashioned him from a meek child to an incredible weapon.

Such a notion of pleasure was absent with Bariel, however. The two were twins, inseparable since the day they were inducted as Scouts. All Astartes were brothers, but Bariel and Carneliel were family, no matter how much the relentless hypno-indoctrination told them otherwise. It was another reason Asmodai admired the two, initially. They were weak of body, but intensely strong of mind. Carneliel was just strong enough. Bariel was too strong for his own good.

“Carneliel,” Bariel sputtered, pleading and rolling onto his knees to look up to his brother, who stood over him like a baleful sun roiling an unworthy landscape. He looked up to see the face he found security in, seeing only the brutal skull mask and scarlet lenses. “Carneliel,” he repeated desperately.

**CRACK! CRACK!**

Carneliel brought the Crozius across his brother’s face. He felt teeth splinter, the jaw give, and the skull fracture. He took another swing as Bariel fell over, bruising his spinal column. He closed his eyes. In truth, the sight of his brother in such disrepair, knowing himself to be the cause, was almost too much, even for the jaded nature of the Astartes. He thought of when Bariel’s squad was pinned down by an Ork onslaught, Bariel’s face when Carneliel ripped through the Nobz with his chainsword.

Such pride, he felt then, but pride was absent in this ordeal. The time for wellbeing and goodness had long passed.

“You lost the privilege of my name when you turned your back to the Lion,” Carneliel hissed, moreso to remind himself than his comrade. “When you turned your back on the Imperium, the Emperor!”

“Carneliel,” Bariel weeps, crawling away from the pair of Interrogators, pressing himself to the wall. Carneliel did not stop him this time. “You know I did no such- I’d never, I’d never-“

**CRACK!**

The shoulder this time. Bariel loosed a gasping wail as the dislodged limb struck the stone below, stabbing into his chest.

“We know what was reported, Bariel!” Carneliel barked. “You dare accuse the Ravenwing of mistruth? The sanctified Black Knights of the Chapter? You see them as dishonest?!”

“Damn the Ravenwing,” Bariel murmured softly, shakily.

“I should kill you for that,” Carneliel snarled, kneeling down to grab Bariel’s blonde remnants of hair, pulling him up to meet the grim scarlet of Carneliel’s lenses.

“You have to believe me,” Bariel muttered. Carneliel couldn’t stop himself from inspecting his victim’s bruised features. The last time he remembered Bariel looking half this bad was during his duel with the Night Lords in Hyperia Hivesprawl, and how he always wore his helmet following the affair. Old scars had burst open from the blunt force trauma Carneliel had ruthlessly inflicted upon him. The sight made Carneliel pause for a few seconds.

“Brother-Interrogator, what is this?!” demanded Asmodai in Carneliel’s moment of hesitation. “If you cannot force him to repent,” he grumbled, stomping over in an anticipation-ridden manner.

“That will not be necessary, Master,” Carneliel demanded right back, adopting his stone-cold demeanor once again. Somehow, Carneliel steeling himself was more frightening to Bariel than Asmodai drawing closer. “Hand me the Blades of Reason.”

“No,” Bariel whimpered, his eyes practically bulging from his head in shock. “No, no-“ He shook his head as Carneliel outstretched his hand to Asmodai.

“This would be unnecessary if you would only repent,” Carneliel told him coldly, colder than the stone below.

“I am innocent,” Bariel insists, “My soul is clean of sin. You must only believe me, brother.” His hearts dropped as he saw the Blades of Reason enter Carneliel’s hand. “...brother?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off of the esoteric device of pain, the ancient multi-bladed tool. It hummed with a sinister aura, and as the handle entered Carneliel’s grasp, Carneliel even felt the skin of his hands, though protected by his armor, revolt in the Blades’ presence. Carneliel’s gaze changed from the Blades to Bariel as he wielded the device like a mace.

“Repent,” Carneliel growled, wielding the Blades closely to Bariel’s face. He saw Bariel’s skin visibly wriggle and crawl in rebellion to the device, causing him to squirm uncomfortably. “Repent, and I will not have to do this.”

“I will not,” Bariel spat out, staining Carneliel’s helm with blood. “I... am a loyal son... of the Lion!” Carneliel sighed deeply at Bariel’s insistence.

“So be it.”

...

_Leviathan fell upon the world like an eldritch hammer. Tyranids spilt from their spore-pods and immense bio-titans, but the Dark Angels held as the monstrosities ravaged their line. The Knights of House Hawkshroud gallantly dash their war machines into the fray, taking as many of the xenos with them as each inevitably met their end in a hail of impaling thorns, bone-constructed talons, and bio-acidic puke. The air reeked triumphantly with the supercharged fumes of vengeful Plasma, of sizzling Promethium and Melta gas, the charges of sanctified bolter fire goring Gaunts by the hundreds, rebelling against a black sky as the sun was blotted out by the wrath of the Hive Fleet._

_Carneliel raised his Crozius to the air, spearheading the great charge of the Angels into the Tyranid Leaderbeast. He felt the spirit of the Primarch, his wrath and his prowess in equal measure as he and his Bladeguard retinue fell upon the Hive Tyrant. The crackle of power weapons buzzed in the air, and as the swords met the thickened carapace of the incredible xenos, it ripped through like a wrathful god tearing a sheet of paper into twine._

_He heard nothing in that moment, felt nothing. He was nothing but a vessel of the Primarch’s fury as he dropped his sidearm to grab the ravenous Tyrant’s crest, and when he brought his Crozius into the fell-beast’s skull, and it gave, he heard not the crunch of it’s reinforced cranium, or the vainglorious squish of alien grey matter, but only the resounding Mantra of Strength he recited autonomously, his vox projecting his murderous voice to a volume that would shake the very heavens._

_Then it was the scream that broke his fervor._

_**Bariel.** _

_He stopped and saw the Raven wailing in his attack bike. He saw the Ripper that had bored into his brother’s armor, the Apothecary trying so very desperately to liberate the Bio-form from the meat of the Astartes. It was a sound he had heard a thousand times, a sight he had seen a million more, all met unflinchingly until this moment._

**CRACK!**

Asmodai’s fist shook Carneliel to his very core, giving his skull mask a new crack. He felt himself breathing heavily, his lungs working overtime to deliver his brain an excess of air. His hearing returned to him soon after the pain.

“Get ahold of yourself, Interrogator!” Asmodai ordered ferociously.

Then the sight.

The Master of Repentance shaking him, the stone interrogation chamber, Bariel on the ground crying and wailing profusely, banging his head into the floor, a puddle of blood at his feet.

“Make it stop!” Bariel pleaded, “Make the pain stop!”

Asmodai gave Carneliel a terse glare before releasing him. Carneliel’s breathing slowed, and he gulped, reinstating the vice grip of his fists.

“Then you will repent for your sins against the Lion!” Carneliel snarled, reclaiming his grip on Bariel’s head, stopping himself from further injury, leaving him to writhe in his own agony.

“Anything! Anything, just make it stop! Make the pain-“

“You!”

**CRACK!**

“Will!”

**CRACK!**

“Repent!”

CRACK!

“Carneliel-“

“Repent!” Carneliel cries, mercilessly crashing Bariel’s head against the wall.

“I- Brother-“

“Repent, you wretched sinner!”

**CRACK!**

“Stop! I- I repent!” Bariel shrieked desperately.

“Why do you repent?!” Carneliel ceaselessly demanded.

“I repent for the Lion! The- the Chapter, the Ravenwing, I- I repent! Please! Please, please, I repent!”

Carneliel let out a deep breath, dropping his brother to the ground before outstretching his bloodstained hand to Asmodai. Without a word, he handed Carneliel his sidearm- an Absolver-pattern heavy bolt pistol, plated in bronze, a vermillion purity seal dangling upon one of the steel Aquilas on it’s sides. He felt his hand wrap around it’s handle and his finger rest upon it’s trigger as he leveled the firearm to Bariel’s head.

He closed his eyes, and he let the Lion guide him.


End file.
